Last Saturday, a group of people including Andy Bales of URM, Former Mayor Richard Riordian, and representatives from EDAR (Everyone Deserves a Roof) took to the streets of Skid Row for a night. They spent the night in EDARs, which are tent-like structures designed for storage and as an alternative to sleeping on the ground.
Check out this article and video from CBS news to hear more about the night.
Thanks to one of our supporters for making this video to spread the word about our upcoming Thanksgiving Celebrations! If you would like to help provide delicious meals this Thanksgiving Season, please click here.
Three times a year, we have the great joy of celebrating our men’s Life Transformation Program’s graduation! For the men who have completed the one-year program and all of it’s requirements, it is a very special day to celebrate how far they have come.
Yesterday was no different as we honored 22 graduates in our November 2010 ceremony. The graduates and guests heard an inspirational speech from Dr. Keith Phillips, President of World Impact. Cassie Sanchez, Worship Leader at Church of the Redeemer, also blessed us with her beautiful voice and sang several songs.
Thanks to everyone who helps make our Life Transformation programs possible; without you, we wouldn’t be here to help these courageous men and women make the steps to recovery and really change their lives.
Most importantly, congratulations to our graduates!! We are so proud of you.
November 2010 Graduates
Sean Donahue
Terry Fluornoy
Willie Gaines
Darrell Huggins
Joseph Montoya
Broderick Smith
Francisco Alvizar
James Glover
Carlos Herrera
Edward Maldonado
Franscisco Pedroza
Fredis Zuleta
Oscar Castelo
John Meyers
Austin Onyango
Nicki Sidebottom
Louis Stephenson
Steven Varga
Mike Cebreros
Kenneth Jones
Eric Theirmann
Ronald Wells
Union Rescue Mission is facing both a tremendous opportunity, and an overwhelming challenge. We have just completed the Sycamore Building at Hope Gardens Family Center thanks to a capital gift from the County Homeless and Housing Prevention Fund approximately two years ago. Renovation is complete, and we plan an exciting move of 12-14 families, moms with children, directly from our 4th Floor at downtown URM surrounded by the mean streets of Skid Row, to the peace, safety and beauty of Hope Gardens Family Center.
To add to that exciting news, we just received word that the Ahmanson Foundation, without even an official ask from URM, stepped up to provide the much needed funds to completely renovate our final building, the Concord Building at Hope Gardens, and we expect another move of 12 to 14 families, moms and children, from URM to Hope Gardens in March. This great news, along with plans to open a Los Angeles Homeless Authority funded project for nine families at 83rd and Broadway, and a move of our year round shelter for 8 families to a site just off of West Adams, has us on the brink of carrying out a long awaited hope and plan to finally succeed in moving every child and mom away from the mean streets of Skid Row and out to a much more child friendly environment.
This has been the plan of the Board of Directors and staff of URM all along, and frankly, it is one of 3 legacies that I had in my heart when I came through the door of URM nearly 6 years ago.
We have the resources to complete the projects to pull this off, and we are so thankful for this, but here comes the overwhelming challenge. We have a $750,000 gap in our operating funds to pull this off. We hoped to fill this gap with a continued County subsidy of $62,500 per month to Hope Gardens, believing that they would support our carrying out of their mandate to get every child off of Skid Row and out of Union Rescue Mission, but to date we have been unsuccessful. I have reached out to the County Board of Supervisors, and we have asked our faithful donors to reach out to their County Supervisor in hopes that this vital funding would come through, but to date, we have not been successful. I have assured the County that if they do not respond and we fall short in funding, kids will be left on Skid Row, and that will be their decision.
Your amazing heart and faith is our final hope of accomplishing this tremendous history making goal this year. If you could respond in yet another unprecedented way, and we could raise an additional, unexpected, $750,000 by December 31st of this year, we could move ahead with plans to get every single mom and child off of Skid Row and to a beautiful place of safety and hope and a ladder out of homelessness and poverty.
Thank you, for your amazing faithfulness to this Mission, especially during these last few very difficult years. Do you know that together, we have rescued more than 1800 precious children from the streets of LA since the recession hit families so hard in December of 2008? Amazing!
Now it is time to move these precious children from URM on LA’s Skid Row to a place that they deserve! If we fall short, moms and kids will be left on Skid Row. Please give what you can! Thank you! Andy B.
Last night, we were honored to have members of the UCLA Football team come to URM to spend some fun time with our kids!
Everyone enjoyed the time of hanging out, playing games, and getting to know the players. Thanks so much to UCLA and the team for sharing their time and brightening the day for many kids!
We are so thankful for Faith Community Church in West Covina for partnering up with our Church Relations department to host a sock drive to benefit URM.
The month long drive, called “For Feet’s Sake”, brought in 11,500 pairs of socks! This is the largest donation by a church in the history of Union Rescue Mission.
Thanks so much to everyone who helped put this drive together to help bless our guests here at URM!
October is always one of my favorite months, and this year has been no exception! We have been blessed with many special volunteers, fun events, and exciting changes. I also had the opportunity to spend my 2nd annual “night on the streets”. This night further confirmed my belief that no one, especially women and children, should be forced to live on the streets of Skid Row. That’s why we are currently working very hard to move our precious moms and kids as quickly as possible to Hope Gardens Family Center!
Please take a moment to catch up on all the happenings at Union Rescue Mission this month, and hear about what we have in store for the months ahead!
Thanks for helping us end homelessness as we know it in LA!
Tune in tomorrow to see Union Rescue Mission and some of our guests featured on CBS’ “The Bold and the Beautiful!”
Recently, URM was approached by the show to help them learn more about homelessness and Skid Row, because they had decided to incorporate homelessness into the story line. Well, they ended up coming down to URM to film and some of our guests even got to be featured on the show!
Everyone had a fun time having the cast and crew join us for a day. We are also very thankful that the issue of homelessness will be shared with a wider audience. Thanks so much to CBS and ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ for choosing URM to be part of such a special project.
To check out past episodes, including todays, that feature scenes on Skid Row, click here, and be sure to watch tomorrow to see URM on ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’!
This week, kids at URM enjoyed a Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Party with Paris Hilton as the host!
Paris, along with her sister Nicky and some other friends (including her furry friends dressed up in Halloween costumes!) came to URM bringing pumpkins, dinner, snacks, and craft supplies!
It was a night of fun for the kids and their parents, making crafts, carving pumpkins, and hanging out with Paris, Nicky and their friends. Paris also brought some hair accessories from one of her lines for the girls, which they were all very excited about.
Thanks so much to Paris and Nicky, and their friends for bringing a night of fun to the kids – it was a welcome distraction. We are so thankful for everything you’ve done! 
For my blog this week I’d like to do something different. I heard my friend Roddy share his story last Saturday night at a fundraising event. He was to share, and then I would be the keynote speaker. When Roddy finished sharing his story, the saintly Pastor turned to me and said, “How are you going to top that?” I assure you that I did not top it!
I was struck by a theme that I have encountered many times from men who experience homelessness, men who I have talked with, over 300 men that I have surveyed, and even my own Dad. That common theme or denominator is often the loss of their mom at an early age.
Please read Roddy’s story. I believe you will better understand the struggles of a significant number of precious people experiencing homelessness.
By Roderick Rose
Ezekiel 17:24 (New International Version)
24 All the trees of the field will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. ”‘I the LORD have spoken and I will do it.’ ”
I am here today to provide testimony about a remarkable, transformative event. Some of you may have heard my story before…
For the majority of my life I struggled with a poor self image. At the age of five I was abandoned by my mother and raised with a single father and two brothers, and we moved around from place to place because my father was in the military. I found it difficult to make the strong emotional bonds that are so needed in childhood. Socially, I was confused about how to fit in with my peers and suffered a lot of rejection. The most potent rejection I experienced was from my peers in my own race. Many of them told me that I was just too different. I wasn’t acceptable to them and I never could figure out why. I lived my life as an island floating through the oceans of the changing times and spaces. Abandonment and rejection left a deep spiritual and psychological wound that took many years to overcome.
The injuries eventually took their toll on me and when the opportunity to erase that pain presented itself, I took advantage of it. I became a drug addict and alcoholic. I was in my addiction for 8 years. I grew accustomed to being destitute, needy, and unstable, and emotionally disturbed.
In the worst years of my addiction, I came in contact with the Lord’s Lighthouse. As my face became more familiar to some of the staff and volunteers, I got an opportunity to build a relationship with people like Amie Quigley and Pastor Chuck.
Just the fact that two people of God were willing to have a decent conversation with me, with sincerity, I might add, was very encouraging for me. It was like they psychically knew that I longed for a meaningful connection. Their concern for me was evident when they would either take me out for coffee or visit me at my camp site across the street from the Lord’s Lighthouse.
And it was at that campsite, when two years ago, I made my next move. It wasn’t to another city or another state. It was a move downtown to the Union Rescue Mission, where I ran into another servant of the Lord, who I met previously during my time in the streets…Andy Bales, the CEO of the Union Rescue Mission. I enrolled in the Christian Life Discipleship Program there. Two weeks after arriving there, I went to God in prayer, and I asked him this: “Lord, will you save me? Will you take me back into your family? I will follow you now, but I have just one thing to ask of you. Will you please take away the self-hatred that I’ve had my entire life and will you give me joy? Because even though I’m here, I cannot do this program unless you remove this thing from me. If you do that, nothing will stand in my way from serving you”…And guess what? He did!
And after saying that prayer, I had the strength to do the program, graduate from the program, and nowadays I’m completing a one year apprenticeship at the URM. Right now I’m in my second semester of college, I’m starting my own business this coming spring, and I even have a fiancée (her name is Michelle) a woman who truly loves me. It is definitely a wonderful thing to find the woman that God has made for me… I now have more than two years clean and sober.
But I would have to say that my most cherished accomplishment is that I finally realized that God has always loved me and it was God who protected me, even if he had to discipline me, but nonetheless, He loved me and accepted me and brought me into his family. He loved me before I even loved myself. And I thank God now, that the love I have for myself, I can give to others. Thank You and God Bless!